Mary Astor's Purple Diary

April 25, 2016
Acclaimed illustrator and writer Sorel (The Mural at the Waverly Inn: A Portrait of Greenwich Village Bohemians) shares his lifelong appreciation of classic film in this utterly charming, and colorfully illustrated, account of the life of Oscar-winning actor Mary Astor (1906–1987). Astor, best known for The Maltese Falcon (1941), lived a life that was often more fascinating than the roles she was offered. Despite being acclaimed both for her talent and beauty, she suffered several professional lows and endured one of the most scandalous episodes of 1930s Hollywood when her ex-husband stole her diary and used passages revealing her affairs to contest Astor’s custody of their daughter. After coming across old tabloid newspapers detailing the trial, Sorel developed an obsession with Astor that has lasted for more than 50 years. In this succinct and poignant book, Sorel traces the trajectory of Astor’s career as it melds with his own. She emerges as a troubled figure who struggled to navigate the choppy waters of success. The author’s lively narrative and vibrant images gives the actor a new role as an artist’s muse.

July 15, 2016
A charming slice of retro Hollywood tabloid scandal.Though the book might have benefitted from a few more of the author's exquisite illustrations and a little less explication, this exhumation of the "Great American Sex Scandal of 1936" allows the artist to fully indulge the obsession he's carried for the last half-century. When Sorel (Certitude: A Profusely Illustrated Guide to Blockheads and Bullheads, Past and Present, 2009, etc.) was replacing his kitchen linoleum, he found newspapers alluding to the scandal featuring the diary of actress Mary Astor, who was in court to regain custody of her daughter and whose estranged husband "planned to use the diary to prove she was an unfit mother....Mary, he claimed, had not only kept a tally of all of her extramarital affairs but graded them." Though the subsequent pages recount the story of young Mary's exploitation, first by her parents, then by the movie industry, the playful tone suggests a more innocent era and a time when the glamorous Hollywood, amid the transition from silent movies to talkies, gives the artist the opportunity to "draw that exotic place when it was just at the beginning of its love affair with art deco." As the narrative traces Mary's rise and fall, it also provides an account of "how Eddie Schwartz morphed into Edward Sorel," a story that ultimately provides some parallels with Astor's and suggests why her plight so strongly resonated with that of the renowned magazine illustrator. In addition to diary excerpts and other research, the book features an extended interview between the author and "the long-dead actress" as the "proselytizing atheist" attempts "to channel her in her Catholic heaven" and get her to tell her story about the beginning of her notorious affair with Broadway's George S. Kaufman. What was then labeled "the worst case of dynamite in Hollywood history" seems pretty tame today, but Sorel's command of tone and pen sustains readers' interest.

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September 1, 2016

Illustrator/cartoonist/caricaturist Sorel's new book is part memoir, part Tinseltown tell-all, part graphic novel, and part love letter to American actress Mary Astor (1906-87), whose most famous role was alongside Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon. Her greatest offscreen role was as sexual adventuress, when her husband discovered her "purple diary" (actually, Sorel tells us, the ink was brown) going into great detail about her affair with New York-based playwright George S. Kaufman. When Astor sued for custody of their daughter, her aggrieved husband leaked the diary to the press, and the "sex scandal of 1936" was on. Thirty years after the trial, young illustrator Sorel finds wrinkled newspapers covering the case under the linoleum in his kitchen and an obsession is born. Using his slightly frenetic drawing style, which will be familiar to readers of the New York Observer, the Nation, and many other publications, the author recounts his and Astor's semicommingled life stories. VERDICT Sorel doesn't quite crack his love object's facade, but his reportage and drawings are enjoyable and evocative. Especially recommended for those who've heard about the sex scandal of 1936 but also for fans of intelligent graphic novels such as Jules Feiffer's Kill My Mother and Roz Chast's Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?--Liz French, Library Journal

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2016
Prominent illustrator and cartoonist Sorel grew up in the Bronx during the Great Depression as a latchkey kid who entertained himself by drawing and going to the movies, passions that fuel this unique, witty, deeply involving illustrated chronicle of his long enthrallment with the movie star Mary Astor. His obsession was triggered in 1965 when he ripped up an old linoleum floor and discovered a layer of tabloid newspapers from 1936 recounting in screeching headlines Astor's scandalous custody battle for her daughter after her current husband got hold of her diary and its explicit record of her affair with playwright George S. Kaufman. Steeped in Astor's troubled life, Sorel recounts her monstrous parents' brutal exploitation of her beauty and talent, her initiation into acting and sex by John Barrymore, her disastrous marriages to cruel mooches, her love for Kaufman, her depression, her vicious prosecution, and her triumphant grace under pressure. Sorel deftly mixes in compelling episodes from his own life, including run-ins with the FBI and the impetus for the left-wing political satire in his famous work for the Nation, the Atlantic, and the New Yorker. Sorel's writing is jaunty and affecting, and his jazzily dynamic and keenly expressive drawings masterfully capture the edginess and glamour of Astor's world as he brings the underappreciated actor back into the limelight with verve and empathy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)